Chapter 38 #2
He laughs—real—and pats my hand. We roll again. Softer couch banter now, late-night fluff: comfort food, morning routine, the Valley things I’m learning to pretend to love. The credits hit like a prayer answered. Applause floods one last time. Cole walks me offstage. His producer mouths: nailed it.
In the hall, Blake hooks an arm around my waist and lifts me for one single heartbeat. He sets me down fast, remembering the cameras still see everything.
“You were perfect,” he breathes.
“I was inevitable,” I say.
The car ride home smells like hydrangeas. Cole’s social team has already posted the clip; it’s climbing. My inbox turns feral—book proposals, free merch, outrage from people who hate me and can’t stop watching. Lila scrolls beside me, narrating at speed.
“Donations up sixty percent since your segment started,” she says. “Three anchors DM’d to book you tomorrow. One wants a breakfast hit on the East Coast. You’d have to be up at four.”
“I don’t sleep,” I say. “I rehearse.”
“Bless you,” she says. She types with surgical precision. “Also—Harper texted again. ‘Proud of you. Call me?’”
“Let her sweat,” I say. “She disinvited me. Let the empty chair keep her company.”
“Copy,” Lila says, and pins a star next to it on her spreadsheet.
When we reach the grounds of St. Mary’s, Blake opens my door and offers me a hand as I step out, looking me over like I’m the last line of a poem he’s trying to memorize.
“You felt it, didn’t you?” he asks.
“Which part?”
“The moment the room shifted and surrendered.”
“Always feels the same,” I say.
We step into my rental. Lila floats toward the second guest room to start tomorrow’s Inbox Triage in a nest of throw pillows and index tabs. Blake sets his camera down gently, the way some men set down newborns, and turns to me.
“Tomorrow we amplify,” he says. “You’ll post a thank-you. The doc’s account will post a behind-the-scenes reel. We’ll push the legal fund one more time while the iron is still white-hot.”
“We,” I say again.
He comes close. “I can’t stop looking at you when you’re. . . like this.”
“Alive?” I ask.
“Hungry,” he says.
I laugh. “I’m always hungry.”
He kisses my knuckles like a medieval knight. For a second, I let the fantasy breathe.
There’s a knock. Three quick, businesslike taps. Lila peeks around the corner. “Delivery,” she says. “From the studio.”
Blake opens the door. A PA hands him a slim black box with a handwritten card on top. Thank you for sharing your story. —C.
I open the box. Inside, a single white silk pocket square with the show’s logo stitched on the corner. A joke, a wink, a brand. I press the silk to my cheek for a beat, then drop it on the counter.
“Frame it?” Lila suggests.
“Wipe up spills with it,” I say. “Either way, it’s content.”
Lila’s phone buzzes. She reads. “Hearth & Hands wants you to tape a video thank-you to donors. They also want to invite you to their board. Unpaid, obviously, but prestige.”
“Tell them I’ll consider,” I say. “Prestige is a currency. I prefer actual currency.”
“Copy,” she says. She scribbles, then glances up. “You know I can take the board seat as your proxy. If you want a vote without. . . the meetings.”
I look at her. Lila’s eyes shine with something like devotion, or ambition, or both. I nod slowly.
“Do it,” I say. “You’ll say no to what I would say no to. You’ll say yes to what makes me bigger.”
“Always,” she says.
Blake watches us with an amused half-smile, like a proud stage dad whose star found the light. He lifts the camera again without asking.
“Say something to your people,” he says.
I face the lens. Imagine millions hanging on the breath between my syllables.
“Thank you,” I say simply. “For seeing the person I am instead of the story someone else wrote. For every message, every dollar, every time you corrected a stranger in a comment section. I carry you with me into every room, and I won’t waste what you’ve given me.”
Blake lowers the camera, satisfied. Lila claps softly like she’s afraid of waking the gods of engagement.
I slip off the pearls and lay them on the counter.
My phone lights. Another flood of notifications. And then, threaded between them, one new message from an unknown number.
Enjoy the applause. The credits haven’t rolled.
I stare at it. The tug at the corner of my mouth registers before my brain does. I can’t help it. I like a heckler. It means the house is full.
“Anything good?” Blake asks, seeing my expression.
“Everyone wants my skincare routine,” I say, dropping the phone face-down on the counter. “Also someone thinks I should rot.”
“Block and bless,” Lila says, automatic.
“Let them talk,” I say. “Talking buys time.”
Blake nods. “And time buys the ending.”
“Exactly,” I say. “And we sell the ending twice.”
He laughs. Lila checks another box off a list only she understands. I pour myself a glass of water, hold it up to the light. It looks like a prop: clear, innocent, everything you want to believe.
“You were. . . perfect,” Lila says softly, almost to herself.
I meet my own eyes in the black microwave door. “No,” I say. “I was believable.”
The clock above the stove flips to midnight. Donations keep moving. Comments multiply. Somewhere, Harper is chewing her cuticles over police files and conscience. Somewhere else, someone anonymous with a microphone is loading a new clip into the chamber.
My PR team shuts everything down that needs shutting. Blake edits until dawn, carving me out of hours into eight sharable minutes that will seed new hours. Lila schedules, organizes, triages, smiles, the perfect constellation of competent orbit.
“Tomorrow,” Blake says from the couch, eyes already closing, “we go again.”
“We always go again,” I say, and turn off the kitchen light.
In the dark, the room hums with devices that keep track of what belongs to me. It’s not peace. It’s better. It’s control.
America saw my smile tonight. It saw my tears. It heard the line and believed the prayer. I’m just grateful someone believed in me.
They did. They do.
And if they stop, I know how to make them remember.
I crawl into bed and reach for the journal that’s been my anchor each night since I found it hidden in the chapel.
I read another story about a fallen woman—disgraced, destroyed, dehumanized. In the margins are phrases like: beware the worshipper, we always remember, never forgive—never forget. I add my own poetic warning: love is leverage and beauty hides rot.
I close the journal, tucking it under the mattress, before I curl into my pillow as a triumphant smile turns my face.
Some women build a family.
I’m building a legacy.
And some legacies require sacrifices.